New Murray State College bass fishing coach John Owen has announced his first-ever signee for the brand new program with the addition of Hayden Curliss from Hartshorne High School.
Curliss was the 2022 Student Angler Federation Oklahoma High School state champion and joins the Aggies for the upcoming season that is scheduled to start in November.
"Hayden was a number one pick for me when I took over the program," Owen commented. "I talked to him at nationals and was extremely impressed by him. He spends a lot of time on the water fine-tuning his craft. He has fished high school tournaments the past two years and is pretty salty. He is usually in the top finishing group. I was really happy to get him signed for us."
Curliss has competed in an average of six to seven BASS Nation tournaments as well as usually around six others from other organizations during the last couple years, according to the Murray State coach. After winning the state championship with his fishing partner he had a chance to compete in the SAF National Championships held in Alabama earlier this year.
While Owen admits the new program will be a work in progress, he expects to have several more participants on board in coming weeks to begin practice in anticipation of the first scheduled tournament on November 11 at Lake of the Pines in Texas.
"Practicing for bass fishing is like playing golf," Owen added. "The more time you spend on the water, the better you are going to be. And we have guys that spend a lot of time on the water, whether it's pond fishing or in a boat on the lake. We got such a late start we didn't want to jump into anything too fast, but we are going to start gearing up and practice at several different area lakes.
"This is a new program but give us a year and I think we will have a pretty strong team put together to compete with. We are going to set up two-man teams and hopefully take four to six teams to each tournament."
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